INDIANAPOLIS PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS

You’ve been injured in an accident. On top of trying to heal from your injuries, you’re getting the run around from the insurance companies and unable to pay your medical bills. You might even be without income due to your inability to work.

We understand and are here to help!

Let us take the burden off of your shoulders and recover for you the compensation you need to get back to your life. Leverage our over 35 years of personal injury experience helping people just like you get paid, get well, and get back to their lives.

3. Focus on Healing

WHAT OUR CLIENTS ARE SAYING

“My wife was hit head-on by an F-350 that did not yield at an intersection from which, we found later, that she suffered irreparable nerve damage in her leg. We consulted with and hired Chris Garrison and his team to represent my wife. They guided us and handled everything from start to finish. We reached a successful settlement with the insurance company, thanks to Chris.”

We are thankful for the kind reviews our clients have voluntarily offered online. While we promise to work tirelessly for every client, it is important to state each case is different and past results do not necessarily ensure future success. That being said, you can be assured our attorneys will work to achieve the best result possible in your case.

You’re injured due to the negligence of another person or organization. On top of the pain of your injuries, you’re overwhelmed. The medical bills are piling up and the insurance companies are refusing to pay.

What do you do next? Do you hire a personal injury lawyer? You want to understand the process but maybe never saw yourself as someone who would hire a lawyer and potentially sue someone. We hear that a lot!

In our over 35 years of experience, the personal injury attorneys of Garrison Law Firm have helped people just like you get paid, get well, and get back to their lives. No matter your injury or situation, we’ve handled an injury case just like yours.

When you call our injury lawyers you will get a FREE personal injury consultation. An experienced personal injury lawyer will evaluate your case and let you know what to expect. We’ll walk you through the legal process and set your mind at ease.

Garrison Law Firm is a big enough law firm to handle any type of personal injury case you might have. Yet, we’re small enough to provide the personal and focused care you deserve. While you might get lost in the chaos of a bigger firm, we make sure your case remains a priority through completion.

Let our personal injury team help you get the financial compensation you deserve. You heal and get back to living your life. Don’t wait, call us today. Time is of the essence in any personal injury case. We’ll make sure you’re making the right decisions to be in the best position to get everything you’re due.

Our Promise to You

When working with our personal injury team you can expect

1. Prompt responses from our team and your lawyer. 2. A clear explanation of the legal process for your case. 3. To be consistently kept in the loop on your case. 4. The GLF team to be an advocate for you in your injury case. 5. Us to help reduce the burden of your situation on your life. 6. Someone who will always listen to you. 7. A legal team that will protect you, your interests, and your rights. 8. That we won’t make decisions without your consent and input. 9. We will always do our best to earn the outcome you deserve. 10. A legal team that is always accessible to you.

Our Promise to You

When working with our personal injury team you can expect

1. Prompt responses from our team and your lawyer. 2. A clear explanation of the legal process for your case. 3. To be consistently kept in the loop on your case. 4. The GLF team to be an advocate for you in your injury case. 5. Us to help reduce the burden of your situation on your life. 6. Someone who will always listen to you. 7. A legal team that will protect you, your interests, and your rights. 8. That we won’t make decisions without your consent and input. 9. We will always do our best to earn the outcome you deserve. 10. A legal team that is always accessible to you.

WHAT TYPES OF CASES DO WE HANDLE?

Our personal injury attorneys have been representing clients in the following situations and more for over 35 years. Not sure if your case fits into any of these categories? Not a problem! Call us and we can help you with whatever situation you find yourself in.

Dog Bites and Animal Attacks

Not all animal attack injuries are the result of a dog bite. Animal attack injuries can be the result of both domestic and wild animals. Indiana laws are different with regard to each. Call our Personal Injury Team today and we will guide you through what you need to know.

Car Accidents and Motor Vehicle Accidents

Anytime you are involved in a car accident, you should remember, first and foremost, not to panic! There are several things that you can do right away to help your potential personal injury claim:

Gather contact information from any and all witnesses on the scene, and make sure you do this right away because witnesses have a tendency to leave before the police arrive!

Call the police to make a police accident report. Even though police accident reports are hearsay and not actual proof, they can provide you with some important information, such as the other driver’s contact and insurance information.

Take photographs of everything (i.e., the scene, the vehicles, and your injuries).

Construction Accidents

Unfortunately, many injuries from construction accidents are serious, life-changing, and sometimes life-ending! Construction accidents can lead to medical expenses and lost time from work. They can also cause the loss of jobs and careers. The may impose hardship on the worker and his or her spouse and family. Future medical expenses and lost opportunities for future employment can increase the value of the worker’s damages.

Motorcycle Accidents

Both the public and insurance companies have unfounded prejudices against bikers. Often, bikers are viewed as risk-taking thrill seekers. Some feel bikers are partly at fault for their own injuries because of the increased risk of riding a motorcycle. There is also prejudice associated with head injuries to bikers not wearing helmets. Assumptions by the public and insurance companies that bikers tend to speed, race, and cut between cars cause extra hurdles for bikers to recover proper damages.

Product Liability or Defective Product

There are many examples of defective products. Some of the more common examples include:

a defective vehicle airbag that fails to deploy in an accident when it should;

a defective tool, machine, or other product that breaks despite being used properly

or a product that fails to provide an adequate warning or instruction label.

Product liability cases in Indiana are governed by the Indiana Product Liability Act (IPLA). They can be brought under several different legal theories. Those theories include but are not limited to: strict liability and negligence. There are also strict time limitations in Indiana for product liability cases. This includes a statute of limitations and a statute of repose. For this reason, it is important to call Garrison Law Firm immediately if you believe you were injured by a defective product.

Slip and Fall or Trip and Fall Accidents

Have you ever experienced a slip and fall or trip and fall? Were you injured on someone else’s property, such as a store or restaurant? We know that people frequent many places. It would be hard to imagine anyone being able to completely avoid these common incidents.

If you have been able to completely avoid these incidents,consider yourself lucky!

If you have experienced a slip and fall or trip and fall, we hope that you were not injured. However, if you were, you might not have known the best way to handle the situation. This is where Garrison Law Firm can help you.

Truck Accidents or Commercial Carrier Accidents

Truck accidents involving commercial carriers such as semi-trucks are more complicated than auto accidents. There are important steps that you need to take right away to preserve evidence at the scene. Be sure to secure the truck’s data recording device or “black box.”

Truck accidents can cause huge losses and serious bodily injuries that will not be adequately covered by the low limits of liability required for them. It is important to find out what liability limits the carrier has under its policy. Fortunately, we find that many commercial carriers have million, or multi-million, dollar policy limits. Often, the carrier is able to pay damages in excess of policy limits. Yet, this is not always the case.

Commercial carriers are only required to carry a minimum of $300,000 in liability insurance if the vehicle weighs less than 10,000 lbs. You might find that surprising. The minimum is only $750,000 for vehicles weighing over 10,000 lbs.

Wrongful Death

When someone loses a loved one due to the intentional or negligent act of another person their response is always varied. That response is almost always tied to the emotion of grief. People grieve differently. Grief can affect some or all the aspects of a person’s life. Loss of sleep, eating habits, and productivity can be affected. It can affect our emotional well-being through, anger, depression, anxiety, hopelessness, fear, among others.

Many people immediately think about making a wrongful death claim. Others either fear or dread facing that process. Often, the sudden trauma of the loss, shock, and need to make funeral arrangements take the focus. This causes many to not realize how important it is to collect and protect crucial evidence. The experienced lawyers at Garrison Law Firm can take much of that stress off the shoulders of loved ones. You just need to get us involved early in the process. There are many types of personal injury cases. None need immediate investigation like a wrongful death case.

Meet our Personal Injury Lawyers

Chris Garrison

Greg Garrison

Martha McDermott

Josh Taylor

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How Long Will My Personal Injury Case Take?

This is a typical question we address in our first meeting with a client. That first answer likely will not be a timeframe measured in days, weeks, or months. It will most likelybe measuredin stages of a case.

For example, if you are in the hospital when you employ the legal services ofGarrison Law Firm, you may be in a prolonged period of recovery. That may include continuing medical expenses, lost income, and pain and suffering. No personal injury attorney can accurately determine the value of your case without knowing the following.

How much are your total medical bills?

Howmuch lostincome will you incur?

Will you have any permanent injuries and future ongoing treatment?

How painful of a recovery period will you have?

Once you finish treatment we will collect and review your medical bills and records. Then we collect lost income records and determine permanent injury value before considering a total value. This evaluation process can take many weeks. It depends on how quick medical providers and employers submit their records and how complicated the medical issues are to present in a demand package to the insurance company.

Once we determine the value of your case, we will make a demand for settlement to the insurance company. That insurance company may respond quickly or may sit on the claim for weeks or even months. Therefore, any lawyer telling you that your case will settle quickly is just trying to sell you on his or her services as “fast,” not “complete.” There may be considerable value in patience by the patient (client).

How Much Will it Cost Me to Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer?

Our accident lawyers handle all injury cases on a contingency fee. That meansyou only pay an attorney fee if we make a recovery for you. That fee is a percentage of the total recovery. Here’s how that breaks down…

If your case is settled without filing a lawsuit:We charge one-third of the total recovery.

If it is necessary to file a lawsuit:We raise our percentage to 40% once we file your lawsuit in court.

Both rates are subject to rare exceptions.

Processing a claim is different than litigating a lawsuit. In personal injury law, the negotiation process often leads to a settlement without filing a lawsuit in court. In this case, there are no court hearings to attend, no depositions to prepare for and attend, and no written discovery to respond to ordraft. The case becomes much more labor-intensive for the lawyer once they have to file a lawsuit. Thus, the fee percentage goes up.

Are there additional costs of a personal injury case?

At Garrison Law Firm, we typically advance the claim preparation costs for medical records on behalf of the client. If we file a lawsuit, we typically advance all litigation expenses. This includes expert witness fees.

Once the case is resolved, those advanced expenses must be repaid by you. This typically is paid out of settlement proceeds or from the collection of a jury verdict.

Under Indiana law, contingent fee agreements must be in writing. So, we will give you a contract to sign that explains in more detail the agreement for your case.

How Does Insurance Work?

Most people believe that if they are injured in an accident that was someone else’s fault that they will be able to collect all their damages from the guilty party’s insurance carrier. Although there is truth in that statement, it is not completely true all the time.

Indiana law only requires passenger vehicle insurance limits of $25,000. Indiana law does not require YOU to have uninsured motorist (UM) coverage. Nor does it require you to have underinsured motorist coverage (UIM). Let’s break down those laws and what it means to you as an injured client.

The guilty driver that injured you may only have insurance coverage for your injuries for $25,000. If you had to have surgery and/or a lengthy stay in the hospital, all that money will go to pay your medical bills. Even if you have medical insurance for those medical bills.

Why is that?

Your health insurance carrier in almost all cases will have “subrogation” rights. This means that if it pays your medical bills for injuries that were the fault of someone else, the health insurance company will “stand in your shoes” and be entitled to take part of your recovery for your injuries. “That part” meaning the amounts it paid for your medical treatment.

The guilty party may not be insured at all. If the guilty party is not insured, then your only recovery could come from the guilty party’s personal assets. Generally, people who do not have insurance also don’t have assets. This, of course, makes it hard or impossible for them to pay a judgment for serious personal injuries.

UNinsured Motorists Coverage vs. UNDERinsured Motorists Coverage

This brings us to YOUR insurance coverage if you have uninsured motorist (UM) and underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage. Then, UM and UIM coverage on your policy must pay the difference between the insurance coverage limit of the guilty party and your UM or UIM limits. Your UM and UIM limits are not generally in addition to the guilty party’s limits. They only make up the difference between the two. Your maximum insurance recovery then is determined by the greater of the limits of the guilty party’s liability limits and your UM/UIM limits. Thus, you need to cover yourself and your motorcycle passengers with higher UM and UIM limits.

To buy higher UM and UIM coverage limits, you must also, under Indiana law, purchase at least as much liability coverage for others as you provide for yourself under UM and UIM limits. By “for others,” we mean if you caused an accident and someone else was injured, the limits they would be entitled to would be at least as much as the limits you provided yourself under your UM/UIM.

Some clients ask the question, “Why should my insurance company have to pay anything if the accident was not my fault?” The answer is because you hired them to pay UM or UIM coverage in the event that the guilty party did not have sufficient covered limits. You have a contract with them to protect you and your passengers, and you paid your insurance carrier money for that coverage.

We also get the question, “Well, won’t my insurance company want to take care of me because I’m their customer?”The answer is, NO!At the point you make such a UM or UIM claim you will become their adversary. Your insurance company will view you no differently (if as well) as the uninsured or underinsured guilty party. Is it wrong for your insurance company to treat you that way? It’s just business to them and it is just the way it is.

Will You Help Me Get Top Dollar For My Damaged Property?

The answer is, no. Why? Generally, a lawyer cannot get you enough more money for your property as it would cost to represent you to do so. Economically, it just does not make sense to hire a lawyer for the property damage. Our law office can make a huge difference for you in your personal injury claim value but not for your property damage claim. The property is worth what it is worth in a value book. We want you to be happy with the total result. That means you processing your property damage claim on your own. We can give you some helpful advice from our accident lawyers.

What to do if you’ve been injured in a personal injury accident.

Garrison Law Firm, LLC

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